"The West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad."-- Robert Spencer

Thursday, August 04, 2005

What's In A Name?

It's frankly comical to watch all these hawkish conservatives tiptoeing through the rhetorical minefield. Meanwhile, the usual suspects stand by ready to shout "Timothy McVeigh" -- as if repeating this incantation somehow neutralizes terrorism's overwhelming nexus with Islamic theology.

Rumsfeld: It's a "global struggle against violent extremism."

Gen. Myers: the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."

Bush: No, it's still the war on terror. "Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives."

Andrew McCarthy (with thanks to JR): "Let's call it "The Thing Involving the Teeny-Tiny Number of People Who Made Certain Things Go Boom After Reading that Book that We Didn't Flush and Who Absolutely, Positively Do Not Represent the Vast, Enormous Majority of Very, Very Nice People Who Read the Same Book Without Making Anything Go Boom."

How can any country win a war when its leaders can barely bring themselves to call it a war, for fear of offending the enemy? Islamists themselves define the conflict as a holy war against Jews and Crusaders. That doesn't make our response a crusade, but we should sure as hell stop pandering to our hypersensitive fifth column and start calling this war what it is. Gates of Vienna suggests "the Third Wave of the Great Islamic Jihad." A mouthful, but much closer to the truth.